So we can't just put the smart people in charge. We have to slowly educate the stupid people out of existence, until the dumbest 51% are finally capable of determining the best people to make decisions, based primarily on their aptitude, rather than on their popularity.

When voting for county dogcatcher, for instance, people would look for "D.V.M." after the candidate's name, rather than "(D)" or "(R)". When people want to hire me, they look at my resume, not my hairline, lapel pin, or party affiliation.

Hey, here's an idea! What's the political science equivalent of FizzBuzz? Whatever it is, you can't get on the ballot unless you can do that thing, live, unaided, and in front of witnesses.

"We have the answers. We're just not soulless enough to want to go through (and perhaps change, in the process) the effort to supply them and make them help."

Platitudes rarely change things.

I get that it's not everyone's desired path (it's certainly not mine), I just think that saying "many of us are smart enough to have the answers, we just choose not to get involved in politics" is perhaps an... underestimation... of the complexity of some of society's problems.

Would you say this (with a straight face) to Alan Turing in 1952?

"What did you expect having a private homosexual relationship in a society where that is illegal? Just take the chemical castration or the jail sentence. Why are you getting so upset about this?"

"Nobody ever broke into someone's house in a state of diminished cognition because of gay sex...."

I... wouldn't be too sure about that.

You're making a comment in the context of the article. All of the parent comments to mine made much broader statements in response to the root comment that was a more general statement. "If you break the law, then you have no right to complain when you go to jail." This is what I was responding to. It touches more than just drug law.

You can say whatever you like when you are jailed. But I have limited sympathy, which I reserve for true victims of circumstance. You (usually) knew it was illegal when you did it.

It's fine to disagree with the law, to protest it, to seek change. But "doing it anyway and hoping you don't get caught" is not an attempt at civil reform.

BUT you do have a right to object to unreasonable punishment. That's absolutely within your rights. "His sentence is way too long for his crime" is a discussion I'm happy to have.

Even in less repressive societies it was not that uncommon for drawing attention to your homosexual nature to make you a lightning rod for hate crimes. And the reaction of the rest of society wasn't "I'm appalled that such a thing would happen." It was, "What did he expect announcing that he was gay?" In the face of such attitudes, you blame the person being oppressed for not wanting to fling themselves under the bus?

Murderer, killer, rapist, pedophile, wife beater, convict, criminal, felon, thief, liar, embezzler, con artist, forger, bum, hobo, dishonest, deceitful, traitor, unethical, petty criminal, cheat, scammer, scam artist, pick pocket, snake oil salesman, chiseler, crooked, unfaithful, drunk, addict.

And a thousand more various categories to toss people into (some refer to crimes, some refer to moral character or life situation, and some blend multiple attributes depending on context).

If a person is a rapist, you call them a rapist and not a murderer, and people know the difference. If a person is a convicted thief, you can call them a petty criminal, and nobody would confuse that with being a serial killer.